fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3203 ]

[ SECRET POST #3203 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3203 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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First, promise I'm not trying to start wank, just trying to understand. This is, after all, a question thread.

I recently read that white writers shouldn't write POC characters because "there's too few being written by POCs." The problem is, if writers don't, there's not enough representation. Plus, let's be honest, it's unrealistic unless you're writing about Medieval Scotland or something. Can someone explain the reasoning? I'm sure there's something I'm missing.

I once saw it framed as "writers from central Africa don't write Jamaicans, so why should white people write black people? Everyone should just write their own culture." Mind you, Nancy Farmer has written Mexicans, Africans, and I think Vikings as well, and I've never heard anyone bitch about her work.

Because we're sick of reading jive talking pimp daddies or rasta jamaicans. White writers never write real POC, they always go for the cheap and easy stereotype along with some very insulting dialects and phonetic accents. I don't know why White-Americans seem to find writing phonetics and dialects so fucking fascinating, but I wish they'd stop it. That includes doing it other white races too. You just ain't good enough at writing, or worldly enough in experience, to pull it off.

...when was the last time you read a book with those two characters (that wasn't a parody)? Like...among any writers.

Also, black people should ONLY write about black people. And gay people should only write about gay people. I don't even want to see Muslims even THINK about writing about Christians. Stay in your lane and only your lane.

nayrt

then, i NEED you to show me the base lane.

also artwork?

also mixed race? interracial affair?

oh, come on, how many research i have to make?

Woooo, RaceFail like it's '09!

Uh, have you been frozen in ice since the 70's or something? There are a lot of black characters that aren't written like something from It's the Great Dolemite, Charlie Brown.

LOL! I feel like this would be a good TV show - Huggybear suddenly wakes up in 2015 and begins ranting about fanfiction.

Serious question (not American), is white American and black American culture so very different? I just assumed (naively) that American culture was many faceted and that people from all races tended to be involved in each facet. Is that a completely incorrect assumption?

Not entirely. People of all cultures in the US often take from one another while dismissing the culture it came from. See people putting on fake 'black' voices to be cool or misusing AAVE or pushing too hard to relate to the inside jokes of children of immigrants.

In general they are different, but there's overlap. The lines are very slowly blurring.

Not really. Like 90% of "AAVE" only slang are just...Southern slang.

The issue is that you have several different complaints from several different sources.

You can't please everyone, so just write it the way you think is right and honest, and don't mind the critics.

Urgh I've seen the odd post about how people shouldn't write outside of their own experiences and it is stupid.

Sticking to "what you know" and not branching out is a recipe for no diversity. Take risks, research a culture you don't know and try to be diverse! Treat the POC like the white characters and you'll hopefully be alright.

Treat the POC like the white characters

welll... sometimes POC have different experiences/perspectives/cultural signifiers so colour-blind writing doesn't always work so well. but yeah writing POC as fully fleshed out and diverse and internally contradictory as the white characters tend to be in books written by white people, for sure.

As in; write them as people with their own story and backgrounds and not as a stereotype.

Treat the POC like the white characters

Essentially, that statement, voiced by a white writer on how to write POC, was what started the LJ Racefail controversy.

I've only skimmed that so my knowledge of that is lacking.

That's some people's opinion. I think it's probably a response to the overuse of stereotyping and token characters. (example: just adding a black guy for the sake of it, or a token gay character who's super camp and gives everyone makeovers.)

Or the use of unfortunate implications and/or fetishization. (eg. maaaaagical indigenous people being saved by this one white guy!) If you're not sure what fetishization is, a great example is some of the "Dear Authors Writing Gender/Sexuality" threads on the nanowrimo boards. You've got stacks of people going: "Well, I added a bisexual Chinese genderqueer female and 2 bi guys and 1 aroalloace panromantic Latin@"
Like it's a checklist you can just tick off to make your novel better.

(Frankly I think tumblr needs to quit checking it's privilege and start checking its creepy fetishization of people as if they're Christmas decorations to add sparkle.)

I, personally, disagree with the idea that writers should only be writing from their own perspective. It has its own set of unfortunate implications. Writers should try to do the best they can, by their story, and by their readers. Fully developed characters are always a lot more fun to read about.

I think the "don't write black characters if you're not black!" idea is teenage tumblrite drivel. I do think however that sensitive topics are often best handled by those who have experienced them.

For example: if you're a white American writer writing a story set in an American city, you can include black characters and/or a black protag. It normalizes it and I think that's a good thing. If the story isn't *about* race, then the race(s) of the characters doesn't matter as long as it's realistic to the setting. BUT, if you're trying to write a harrowing emotional tale about a black person's experience with racism...I would probably avoid that unless specifically endorsed to do so by someone who has experienced it and/or you've done extensive research. It's very easy to do something like that wrong and it can wind up being in very bad taste.

Some of these same people will turn around and scream at white writers of popular shows about how there's never anybody but white people in those shows. The reasoning seems flawed to you because it's flawed.

The actual idea is that anyone can and should write characters of any colour. Diversity is good! There's no reason your story can't have people of all races in it.

However, when it comes to writing about the specific challenges of being a person of colour - facing systemic racism etc - leave that to writers of colour to manage, because someone who doesn't experience those challenges shouldn't speak over someone who does.

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